


You cannot go home again (again)

by Jawanaka



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Corpo V (Cyberpunk 2077), Drama, F/F, Gen, Homesickness, Introspection, Romance, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jawanaka/pseuds/Jawanaka
Summary: It is not the money and the perks that makes corpos stay corpos, V knows.  It's being a part of something greater and standing on the precipice of destiny, V misses her home.Introspective angst fic of corpo V thinking about what she has lost and what she wants to get back.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Judy Alvarez/Female V
Kudos: 30





	You cannot go home again (again)

It looms over the city, it's obsidian and black edifice jutting up from the city center like a colossus of old, massive in height and girth, making every other building in the city feel small, drab, unplanned by comparison. It's chrysanthemum logo shines through the smog like a second moon, it's stark simplicity of design and diamond-on-black almost mocking the garish holo's that emanate up from the city streets. Its entire structure dares you to try and challenge it and mocks that dare at the same time. Arasaka tower. The American stronghold of the world’s mightiest corporation. The corporate jackboot on the throat of Night City.

Home.

Well not home technically, though she probably spent more time there than in her actual home back when she worked counterintel. Night and day spent in meeting rooms and cubicles in the never-changing metallic and scarlet glow, not knowing night or day or week but for the ticking meeting requests. Juggling petty office politics with interventions in the global economy were minute details could mean the difference between a million eddie loss or gain. Stomach a growling vat of acid from the rich coffee and stims that the corp generously handed out like candy to it's loyal employees, together with implants to replace stomach, intestines and liver. Endless orientation days spent kneeling on a mat while listening to lectures on the honorable history, values and goals of the corporation, followed by benders in Japantown laughing at the fundamental clash of those three things.

At counterintel they always knew they were the smartest guys in the room. Let the brokers and engineers, tech-heads and lawyers sit around and pretend its they who hold the corporation up. Let the execs brag, they will wipe the smile of their faces once they found out that their latest deal is a Militech ponzi scheme, that their favorite joytoy is actually a Kang Tao plant. The rush, the schadenfreude of seeing their facade fall down and become the greedy street mongers they all are deep down, calculating whether this will simply be black mark on their career or cause for a firing or worse, all dependent on how big a threat the people in front of them think they are to the corp.

Counterintel gonks are nothing if not loyal.

V takes a deep drag of her cigarette, top quality stuff she got from a quirky little tobacco store in Pacifica, running real tobacco from the voodoo boy’s homeland, matching the silver cigarette holder that is all she has to remember Evelyn by (she respected Evelyn, even if her counterintel self got the jitters on how close she could get to Yorinobu). Just because Johnny got her back into smoking doesn't mean she has to smoke the same filterless crap he likes.

V is (was) Arasaka. She knows the good things in life, knows how to collect them, cherish them. Why she still dresses in green, scarlet and grey suit jackets and buttoned up shirts whenever she can, topping of the ensemble with an idiosyncratic newsie cap. It sends a message, she thinks, telling clients that this here is someone you can count on and telling other mercs that this competitor is different from them. V enjoys nice things, enjoy walking through downtown and feel like she fits right in.

You can take the corpo out of the corp, but not take the corp out of the corpo.

(You’re a rat and a fucking stupid one if you still think you're a corpo V)

Well maybe so, and fuck you too by the way Johnny, be happy I keep our smoking habit alive. Everyone has their misery that they hate when they are engaged in it but miss once it's gone. Jackie, big and stout-hearted that he was, never got it either. If he could walk from the Valentinos why couldn't V walk from Arasaka?

_You're miserable chica, why kill yourself for people who will never care about you?_

And he was right, she knows this. Judy thinks it too, thinks its fucking great she got out of the corpo-world and into hers. Sometimes, when drinking in the lights of the city from her rooftop, luxuriously naked and trailing the cigarette smoke she will flip the tower the bird and hope it comes crashing down and V has to bit her lip to stop herself from admonishing her. Johnny, appearing at an awkward moment with his constant leer fixed as always, nods in seeming approval at Judy's antics, presumably thinking that she shares his ideas of corpos and the evil that they do.

Johnny, narcissist bastard that he is, will never really get what it’s like to live for something other then yourself.

It never fails to amuse her that ol'Silverhand named his band Samurai. The man's an anarchist, constantly believing that he can stop freight-trains by glowering menacingly at them. He can never understand service, how it gives you meaning to stand up to all the shit the world throws at you. That it means you will never stand alone, that wherever you go the stupendous power of Arasaka is looming behind you.

V is not naive. She understands that it was no paradise she lost, that the tower was filled to the brim with back-stabbing bastards (indeed she was in the process of backstabbing someone when she herself became the backstabee) that while the pay was good the working conditions sucked.

But even so she cannot help but miss it. The camaraderie that even extends across corpo borders.

She once took Judy down to what had been her favorite hot-pot place when she still worked the tower, ordered a turtle base and tried and succeeded to blend in among the corpo crowd, who shared the small restaurant despite them being mortal enemies anywhere else. Arasaka sat down next to Militech, Kang Tao and Petrochem hustled over the chili and sesame sauce. The city and the world may be their warzone but corpos know how to appreciate haute cuisine and when to keep their peace. Judy, stupendously uncomfortable, excused herself that she needed to be back at Lizzies, leaving V alone with a pitifully boiling soup, a laughing rockerboy and the feeling of being a stupendous fuck-up. The other guests ignored them, busy with their own dates or scarfing down expensive choice meats before hurrying back to their towers. Workers up from Pacifica cleaned their messes.

The thing about being an aristocrat is that you do not notice that you're special, not until it's torn from you.

(You think the world is yours? The world is theirs V, and you were nothing more than another meat-puppet for them)

(I fucking am them Johnny)

She takes a last drag of her cigarette and crushes it beneath a steel-tipped booth, acrid tobacco smoke rising into her nostrils like the sounds of the street reaches Arasaka tower, weak and dispersed. The edifice still looms in front of her, the mon she once carried proudly above her heart glowing warmly and inviting as the afternoon heat dissipates. There will be a shift change soon, she thinks, rested workers coming in and tired ones leaving, by car, cab, subway or aerodyne, according to preference and status. It's enough to make the heart ache.

_You got Stockholm syndrome V_ , Jackie once called it with a laugh. And yeah maybe it is.

(Foolish greed, lust for control)

But it’s not the money and the perks that makes corpos stay corpos, V knows. It is the knowledge that you’re a part of something greater than yourself, that your life has purpose even if that purpose is on a need-to-know basis.

Arasaka will never accept her back, she knows. Whatever chance she may have had disappeared when she put that chip in her neuroport, it being infinitely more worthwhile than anything she can ever give them. She herself is naught but a liability and truthfully, she would have made the same call in their place (have made the same call, multiple times).

She takes out another cigarette, lifts it to her lips and then think better of it, putting it back in the orderly row amongst its fellows. Her hands, clumsy and not used to her new implants, slips and the cigarette falls, landing in a pile of spilled beer. With a sigh she crushes it as well and stares back up at the place she still thinks of as home.

Beneath its black edifice the Mikoshi waits.

The sea breeze is now blowing full throttle, clearing away the dust and daytime heat. V raises her collar against the chill, the resolutely stomps off towards the elevator.

V is going home.

**Author's Note:**

> Still technically haven't finished the game. Wanted to explore some motivations and themes of loyalty and belonging. Corpo V's are such a piece of delicious angst.


End file.
